NEGATIVE-ACKNOWLEDGMENT ORIENTED RELIABLE MULTICAST OFFLOAD ENGINE ARCHITECTURE

• US 20120155360A1
• Filed: 12/20/2010
• Published: 06/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Lockheed Martin Corporation (Martin Marietta Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lockheed Martin Corporation (Martin Marietta Corporation)
• Inventors: Peters, Carl J., Darmawan, Agustinus, Galasso, James H. Jr.
• Application Number:
  US12/972,938
• Publication Number:
  US 20120155360A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/312
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast

Abstract

A device and method in which processing of NACK-Oriented Reliable Multicast (NORM) protocol data transmissions are offloaded from host processors. A NORM Offload Engine (NOE) software architecture may apply the NORM protocol within a Network Interface Card (NIC) or Network Blade (NB) hardware platform. Moving the NORM protocol processing from the host processor to the NOE hardware unit removes the protocol processing load from the host processor and significantly increases performance of data transmission among sources and sinks across a network layer.

Claims

1. A networking device comprising:

a hardware unit interposed between a host processor and a network layer, the hardware unit including at least one processor; and

computer program instructions executable by said processor, said computer program instructions including a negative-acknowledgment oriented reliable multicast (NORM) stack module, wherein said NORM stack module implements a NORM protocol specification to transmit and receive data between the network layer and the host processor.

2. The device of claim 1 further comprising at least one memory included in the hardware unit, the memory storing at least a portion of the computer program instructions.

3. The device of claim 1 wherein said at least one processor comprises a multi-core processor.

4. The device of claim 1 wherein said hardware unit comprises a network blade.

5. The device of claim 1 wherein said hardware unit comprises a network interface card.

6. The device of claim 1 wherein the NORM stack module simultaneously supports unicast transmission and multicast transmission.

7. The device of claim 1 wherein the NORM stack module implements packet forward error correction.

8. The device of claim 1 wherein the network layer comprises at least one of a wide area network (WAN) and a local area network (LAN).

9. The device of claim 1 wherein said computer program instructions executable by said processor further include at least one of a 10-giga-bit Ethernet module, an internet protocol (IP) module, and a network management protocol module.

10. The device of claim 1 wherein said computer program instructions executable by said processor further include at least one of a traffic shaper module, a traffic meter module, a traffic manager module, and a configuration manager module.

11. A method for use in transmitting data between a host processor and a network layer, said method comprising:

interposing a hardware unit in a communication path between the host processor and the network layer, the hardware unit including at least one processor; and

executing computer program instructions with the at least one processor of the hardware unit to implement a negative-acknowledgment oriented reliable multicast (NORM) stack module to transmit and receive data between the network layer and the host processor in accordance with a NORM protocol specification.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

storing at least a portion of the computer program instructions on at least one memory included in the hardware unit.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein, in said step of executing, the at least one processor of the hardware unit comprises a multi-core processor.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein, in said step of disposing, the hardware unit comprises a network blade.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein, in said step of disposing, the hardware unit comprises a network interface card.

16. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

transmitting data between the host processor and a single sink across the network layer in accordance with the NORM protocol specification.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein, in said step of transmitting, the network layer comprises at least one of a wide area network (WAN) and a local area network (LAN).

18. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

transmitting data between the host processor and a plurality of sinks across the network layer in accordance with the NORM protocol specification.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein, in said step of transmitting, the network layer comprises at least one of a wide area network (WAN) and a local area network (LAN).

20. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

executing computer program instructions included in the NORM stack module to implement packet forward error correction.

21. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

executing computer program instructions with the at least one processor of the hardware unit to implement at least one of a 10-giga-bit Ethernet module, an internet protocol (IP) module, and a network management protocol module.

22. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

executing computer program instructions with the at least one processor of the hardware unit to implement at least one of a traffic shaper module, a traffic meter module, a traffic manager module, and a configuration manager module.